Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Adventures Continued...
After we made it back from Cecret Lake we headed to Riverton where they have one of the best pumpkin farms around. I was amazed at the prices and sizes of their pumpkins. I haven't carved a pumpkin for several years, so I decided we would go pick our own pumpkins and carve them for Halloween so that I had something to put on my porch for trick or treaters. Hurray for Columbus Day!!
Columbus Day Adventures
Stephen got Columbus day off on Monday which was fabulous for us to have a nice long weekend together. I still had to work, but only for a few hours in the morning, so we had all afternoon and evening to get out of the house and do something. So we headed through Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Albion Basin and hiked up to Cecret Lake. It wasn't a big hike, but man, did I really find out that I'm out of shape! The lake and mountain scenery were so beautiful; I only wish we could have been up there a few weeks ago when the falls colors were at their peaks.
I wasn't sure if I was going to fit inside, and if I did I didn't want to get sap all over me, haha, so I'm trying really hard not the touch the tree.
On our way to the lake we spotted this cool looking conifer. This Spruce tree has another spruce tree growing on it! You can see the roots where, over time, the main tree uprooted it and fused both trees together, and in an effort for the other tree to get light its branches looped their way around to survive. I love plants!
Friday, October 5, 2012
Funny
So Stephen and I have had a groupon for this amazing BBQ restaurant for a few months now and we only have until the 24th of October to use it. So we decided to use it the other night for dinner in West Valley. We drove out there and pulled into the parking lot in front of the restaurant and found this sign.
We were really disappointed, of course, at first but I had to laugh because when do restaurants ever run out of food?! We ended up going next door to Jimmy Johns for a sandwich instead.
Creepy!
Remember that one giant black widow I mentioned a few weeks ago that Stephen found? I came home from work last week to find another one by the garbage can outside. I texted Stephen and told him I thought our little friend followed us home from the dump, but this one was about 1/3 smaller than the first one we spotted. I did, however, get some good photos of it.
Then we decided to spray it and try to kill it without stepping on the poor thing after I got my photos. So here is Stephen spraying it and then after it didn't work Stephen looked on the spray bottle and it said "will not kill black widows or brown recluse" Haha, just our luck, but this little guy was kinda dying anyway from something else.
Its long front legs look like claws!
Reminiscing
Last weekend I had a few old roommates from college come for a visit and make a craft. We had lots of fun eating lunch, talking, and making our ghosts and spider garland. I sure do miss those days sometimes; I had some the best roommates and good times at BYU-Idaho. I hope we can all get back together some day. Anyway, we made these cute little ghosts from cheese cloth which only took a few minutes, tops, to make. They take a few hours to dry though. I had to make a few more after they left to fill up my bookshelf.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Fall Is Here!
I cannot say enough how much I love autumn. The weather is perfect, I can wear sweaters and boots, the nice little chill in the air, the smells, the brilliant colors of nature, cozy-ing up with my sweetheart on the couch (as if I don't do that already, lol), the anticipation of the holidays just around the corner, I could go on, but I just love fall!
Recently along with the changes we made to our living room, Stephen and I have also been busy outside "remodeling" our yard as well. It is a ton of work to keep up with our garden, the flowerbeds, and mowing the lawn and keeping it green, especially for only two people with a big yard like we have. Since we bought an older home that means we have to deal with juniper bushes and lots of them because they were very popular to plant back in the day. I cannot stand juniper bushes! I will never ever design a yard using them. Ever. There are tons of other options for an evergreen shrub that not only looks better, but they won't collect spiders and trash either. So, Stephen and I had all our junipers pulled out along with a gigantic vine growing on our wall in the back yard a few weeks ago. My yard now looks bleak and barren, but it's also a blank canvas for me to work my magic.
One day while I was outside deadheading my zinnias I found this little big guy!
Speaking of bugs, when Stephen and I were scooping out the lava rock out of the back of the truck at the dump last weekend he spotted a giant black spider crawling around and told me to come take a look. I looked at it and saw the distinct shape of its abdomen and tried to turn it on its back to find a red marking. It was a really aggressive spider and it took me a few tries to flip it, but sure enough it was the famed black widow spider! I have seen my fair share of black widows on the farm, but I have never seen one that big. I wish I could've take a picture of it because it was HUGE! Now it creeps me out knowing we have those spiders around our house. We had all the rolls of carpet that we took out of the living room that had been sitting outside for weeks sitting the truck, so I think it crawled inside one of the carpet rolls, eeeewe!
I also had a friend from high school come over and make a cute Halloween craft with me. It's cute and inexpensive, and we had a great time. I even made a pumpkin jelly roll cake for the first time, and I wasn't sure how or even if it was going to turn out, but it was beautiful and yummy!
Recently along with the changes we made to our living room, Stephen and I have also been busy outside "remodeling" our yard as well. It is a ton of work to keep up with our garden, the flowerbeds, and mowing the lawn and keeping it green, especially for only two people with a big yard like we have. Since we bought an older home that means we have to deal with juniper bushes and lots of them because they were very popular to plant back in the day. I cannot stand juniper bushes! I will never ever design a yard using them. Ever. There are tons of other options for an evergreen shrub that not only looks better, but they won't collect spiders and trash either. So, Stephen and I had all our junipers pulled out along with a gigantic vine growing on our wall in the back yard a few weeks ago. My yard now looks bleak and barren, but it's also a blank canvas for me to work my magic.
BEFORE
AFTER
So far we have taken out 12 shrubs and we have four more to go, but we'll wait for spring to finish the job and finally fill in our large dirt patch with grass. I can't wait, it's going to look like a whole new yard come this time next year!
This past Saturday we worked in the yard pulling out two more large shrubs in our front yard to get ready for us to plant some new trees and shrubs. It was strenuous work, and although Stephen hates doing yard work, he did a nice job pulling out the shrubs and raking and shoveling the hideous red lava rock in the back of the truck to take to the dump. We didn't get everything done we wanted to last week so we have to continue again this week getting rid of railroad ties, pruned branches and more lava rock. I have several new shrubs, trees, and somewhere around 200 spring bulbs to plant before it starts to snow this year, so its a race against nature's clock to get everything in the ground so they don't freeze and die during the winter.
Speaking of bugs, when Stephen and I were scooping out the lava rock out of the back of the truck at the dump last weekend he spotted a giant black spider crawling around and told me to come take a look. I looked at it and saw the distinct shape of its abdomen and tried to turn it on its back to find a red marking. It was a really aggressive spider and it took me a few tries to flip it, but sure enough it was the famed black widow spider! I have seen my fair share of black widows on the farm, but I have never seen one that big. I wish I could've take a picture of it because it was HUGE! Now it creeps me out knowing we have those spiders around our house. We had all the rolls of carpet that we took out of the living room that had been sitting outside for weeks sitting the truck, so I think it crawled inside one of the carpet rolls, eeeewe!
Making Our House a Home
Here are some before and after shots of the work Stephen and I have done to our living room this summer. Going through the pictures I realized I didn't do a very good job taking pictures before we started to get a good idea of how ugly the living room really was, but what's important is that it's not ugly anymore! This is my favorite room in our house right now because we gave it a major facelift.
We were initially going to go with a green room......good thing we didn't! The 2nd photo on the right I took through the plastic that was blocking all the doorways so the popcorn ceiling dust didn't go anywhere except the living room. Taking the ceiling off was the worst part of this whole project because it was a thousand degrees outside in late June and we had to wear hazmat suites, masks, gloves, and a hat to protect ourselves with all the doors, windows, and AC shut off. That took us a few hours to complete and by the time we finished taking the ceiling off we were completely drenched in sweat.
I thought this picture was funny. the paint got stuck to the carpet over night and I couldn't get the lid off the paint.
We had to tape up brown paper to protect our walls when we sprayed on our new ceiling texture.
We ended up painting the living room blue instead of that hideous green and here we are taking the ugly brown carpet out to reveal our wood floor! I was really surprised how great of shape the wood floor was under the carpet. That carpet was so old the padding underneath just disintegrated when you touched it, so I ended up having to actually sweep up the padding instead of rolling it up like the carpet.
Next we took up the ply board and linoleum in our entryway. It wasn't in as good as shape as the living room, so unfortunately we now have to refinish the whole floor.
And voila!! Our new living room. I don't have all our pictures and stuff up on the walls yet, and I put out my Halloween decorations in these photos too so there are fake spider webs everywhere, but it turned out SO nice I can't even believe it is the same space we moved into three months prior. We still have a little more to do to the living room like add curtains, a few side tables and coffee table, lamps and another chair, but those things will come with time.....as soon as we afford them that is. Seeing this gets me all excited to redo our kitchen and bathroom and they both desperately need a make over.
BEFORE
We were initially going to go with a green room......good thing we didn't! The 2nd photo on the right I took through the plastic that was blocking all the doorways so the popcorn ceiling dust didn't go anywhere except the living room. Taking the ceiling off was the worst part of this whole project because it was a thousand degrees outside in late June and we had to wear hazmat suites, masks, gloves, and a hat to protect ourselves with all the doors, windows, and AC shut off. That took us a few hours to complete and by the time we finished taking the ceiling off we were completely drenched in sweat.
We ended up painting the living room blue instead of that hideous green and here we are taking the ugly brown carpet out to reveal our wood floor! I was really surprised how great of shape the wood floor was under the carpet. That carpet was so old the padding underneath just disintegrated when you touched it, so I ended up having to actually sweep up the padding instead of rolling it up like the carpet.
AFTER
And voila!! Our new living room. I don't have all our pictures and stuff up on the walls yet, and I put out my Halloween decorations in these photos too so there are fake spider webs everywhere, but it turned out SO nice I can't even believe it is the same space we moved into three months prior. We still have a little more to do to the living room like add curtains, a few side tables and coffee table, lamps and another chair, but those things will come with time.....as soon as we afford them that is. Seeing this gets me all excited to redo our kitchen and bathroom and they both desperately need a make over.
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